The Power of Museums as Community Hubs

According to the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) there were approximately 35,000 museums in the United States in 2014 (more than all of the Starbucks and McDonalds in the US combined).

Click to jump to the Cade Museum or Manassas Museum.

The Traditional Museum and its Importance in the Future

Museums have long played an important role in society. Collecting and protecting our most precious art and artifacts and interpreting their cultural value and relevance has always been critical to their mission. Equally important is chronicling our history and thereby protecting our future by enabling visitors to see themselves in history’s context and to be empowered by invaluable lessons from the past.

The responsibility of interpreting history includes telling a complete story, from more than one perspective. Gone are the days of “to the victors go the spoils”—the spoils in this case being control of the story told. History is complicated and it has long been understood that if we limit our understanding to one vantage point, we will be destined to repeat our missteps of the past. Museums today must tell all sides of the stories that make up our history to remain relevant. This has never been more self-evident than in today’s social media culture, where it’s too easy—perhaps even unavoidable, thanks to the algorithms—to live in our own echo chambers.

Museums today are connecting with visitors in new ways, and museum programming has expanded far beyond the traditional teacher-student model. Today, museums are sourcing interpretive content that is informed by members of their communities and are recording community perceptions and reflections on that content. Exhibits now regularly include integral areas where visitors are encouraged to record their thoughts in varied formats, thus promoting the message that every voice counts and that without an engaged audience, content is irrelevant. Opportunities for hands-on participation in work inspired by the exhibit are hugely popular; for example, a stop at stations with materials for art-making in formats similar to what is being exhibited at an art museum, which deepens and enriches participants’ understanding of the artists’ process.

Museums are also trusted institutions which we rely on to tell the truth, be it the provenance of an object or the facts and context of our history. With the advent of artificial intelligence (AI) in recent years, this is even more critical. Information amalgamated by AI can include misrepresentation, distortions of the truth, and even propaganda. Even more disturbing is that AI-generated information from verified and unverified or false sources can be intertwined and indistinguishable. While AI may eventually be able to sort through all of the clutter to provide trustworthy data, museums and other interpretive resources such as nature centers, public gardens, and interpretive centers will always play a critical role in society as the keepers of truth—arbiters of that which is real versus that which is not.  

The Operational Challenge

Museums have historically struggled to combat a perception that they are insular, elitest institutions catering primarily to the most affluent, reinforced by entrance fees which can discourage or preclude access. Over the last several decades, museums have been working to find ways to eliminate financial barriers to entry through variable fee structures, public funding partnerships, grant support, and other strategies that foster economic inclusivity and a broader audience.

As history unfolds, museum collections logically grow, and pressure mounts to expand the stories told while making museums more accessible to all, it becomes more challenging to sustain the building type in its traditional form. Restaurants, cafes, and museum retail shops provide some revenue, but bring their own operational and facility-based challenges. Museum directors can find themselves in a never-ending loop of grant writing, donor solicitation, fundraising event hosting, and conducting paid programs to raise enough money to keep the doors open. Unfortunately, there is only so much grant money to go around, and similarly, the donor pool gets stretched as more and more institutions vie for their attention. As a result, museums are forced to expend a tremendous amount of their finite time searching for operational financial support.

Transition to Engaging Community Hub

For many reasons, including the need to host paid programming, the museum typology has grown to include educational and cultural spaces such as auditoriums, conference centers, research libraries, classrooms, and large changing galleries that host blockbuster traveling exhibitions. These stimulating spaces, with their immediate access to the museum’s collection and interpretive content, not only offer great places to socialize and exchange ideas but can also connect people to their heritage and history. As such, museums are well-positioned to serve as central community hubs which facilitate a variety of convenings. This is especially true for small community-based museums which make up the majority of museums throughout the United States. Becoming “the place to be” in the community will also help make our most important institutions more sustainable, ensuring that our history is preserved in perpetuity for generations to come.

Museums have long been paramount to our society and continue to play a vital role in documenting and interpreting history. If you believe—as we do—that in a future dominated by AI, museums are critical to maintaining the accuracy of our historic records and telling all aspects of our stories, then it is imperative that we all support museums as they explore new and innovative ways to achieve fiscal sustainability. By fulfilling the role of a community hub, museums can strengthen their own long-term viability while enhancing their missions to educate people and to contextualize and document our history. Museums are a vital “third space” within our communities, where all can gather, engage, and feel welcome while developing a lifelong appreciation for the essentiality of museums.